


Vigil

by CelticKnot



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Destroy Ending, F/M, Garrus is a dork, holiday fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:42:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28131105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelticKnot/pseuds/CelticKnot
Summary: For the 2020 MEFFW Secret Santa Exchange. Prompt: "You're drinking hot cocoa in a pitch black room. Should I be concerned?" Just a little Shakarian holiday fluff.
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16
Collections: MEFFW Secret Santa Exchange 2020





	Vigil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MossyBallerina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MossyBallerina/gifts).



Years of military service had accustomed Amaryllis Shepard to getting up early. Even in retirement, she routinely got up before dawn—especially as winter set in and the night lingered ever longer. Sleeping in just didn’t appeal to her.

Garrus, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed having the freedom to wake up slowly, and rise when he felt like it. And Amaryllis understood that, slipping silently out of bed each morning to start her day without disturbing him. She often teased him about how badly he needed his “beauty rest.”

So in the months since they’d moved in together, on Earth in the aftermath of the Reaper War, Garrus had gotten used to waking up in an otherwise empty bed. But he never thought of it as waking up alone: there was always a light in the kitchen, the smell of coffee wafting through their apartment, and the sweet, beautiful sound of his lover humming to herself.

Today, though… today there was darkness, and silence.

Frowning, Garrus checked the time. 0630. Amaryllis was usually up by now, and indeed her side of the bed was empty and cold. But no light spilled through the open bedroom door. No alien music floated in from the other room. The bitter, earthy scent of black coffee was conspicuously absent. So where was she?

A dizzying array of worrisome possibilities flashed through his mind, each one worse than the last. She’d fallen and injured herself. She was sick. She’d been kidnapped or killed by an intruder.

Garrus’s blood ran cold. Maybe the intruder was _still here._

Moving swiftly and silently, Garrus grabbed his pistol and visor out of the nightstand. Creeping slowly out of the bedroom, he began to methodically sweep the apartment, relying on infrared readings in the dark.

Guest room: clear.

Bathroom: clear.

Kitchen…

His heart leapt into his throat as his visor picked up a heat signature near the far wall. Crouching, he took cover behind the island counter, holding his breath, praying to whatever Spirits might be listening that he hadn’t been seen. When the heat signature didn’t move, he slid quietly around the cabinets before leaping to his feet and aiming his pistol at—

—the kettle. Somebody had boiled water, fairly recently.

Garrus let out his breath and lowered his gun as his rational mind finally caught up with him. This was ridiculous. Surely he was just being paranoid.

“Garrus? What are you doing?”

Amaryllis’s sleepy, somewhat amused, and utterly unconcerned voice came from the living room. Garrus sheepishly set his pistol on the counter, and left the kitchen to find her curled up on the sofa in front of the window, wrapped in a blanket, a cup of something that smelled warm and sweet in her hand.

He frowned in confusion. “Shepard,” he said slowly. “You’re drinking hot cocoa in a pitch black room… should I be concerned?”

Well, it wasn’t quite pitch black. The sky was beginning to lighten, and Garrus could just make out Amaryllis’s smile as she chuckled. “I guess it does look kind of weird, doesn’t it?” she said. She stirred her hot cocoa with a stick of peppermint candy. “Today is Yule—the Winter Solstice. I’m watching for the sunrise.”

“Uh… oh. Okay.” For a long, awkward moment, Garrus just stood there, shifting his weight from foot to foot, wondering if he should join her or go back to bed. Was this some sort of human ritual he’d never heard of? Would he be intruding if he stayed? Or was he expected to participate? “Is this part of that Christmas thing everyone’s going nuts about?” he asked. Tentatively, he sat down on the couch beside her, and was rewarded by her softness and warmth snuggling up to him. “I thought that wasn’t for another few days.”

“It’s not.” When Garrus looked down at her questioningly, she met his gaze with a smile. “Similar idea, different religion. Yule is… kind of a holdover from some old agricultural festivals. It celebrates the return of the sun after the longest night of the year. It looks forward to lengthening days, to warmer weather, to growing season. It’s about emerging from the darkness into the light, about life returning from death.” Her smile faded, and she turned her head to stare out the window again. “It feels particularly… relevant, I guess, this year.”

Following her gaze, Garrus let his eyes wander over the still-scarred landscape. Buildings in various states of brokenness or construction silhouetted themselves in impenetrable black against the deep cobalt of the predawn sky. Piles of rubble huddled under a thin blanket of show. Icicles hung from eaves and scaffolding, aiming sharp points like daggers into the streets below. And in the distance, to the east, the menacing husk of a fallen Reaper loomed over the stilled chaos, striking a chill into his heart as it seemed to gloat over the destruction it had wrought.

But as the sky continued to lighten and the first hint of gold touched the bottoms of the clouds, color flooded over the scene. The shadowy buildings turned gray, then slowly revealed details iced with frost. Even in the midst of reconstruction, some people had found the time and energy to hang decorations in green and red along the streets. Cheerful music, sparkling with bells, floated out of a patched-up storefront. The freshly fallen snow draped the ground in clean white, as if promising a fresh start. The icicles caught the first rays of sunlight and refracted them, glittering like diamonds. And the Reaper in the distance faded into the glow as the sun finally peeked over the horizon. The whole world seemed to breathe deeply of the crisp, clean air.

Garrus had seen many a sunrise in his lifetime. He had seen the muted dawn of red giants, the harsh glare of white dwarves, the searing blast of blistering blue suns. He’d witnessed the light reflecting off planetary rings, spearing across the surface of airless moons, and illuminating the brilliant atmospheres of gas giants. And yet none of them, at this moment, measured up to the glory of this ordinary yellow star rising over this shattered little planet.

Amaryllis set down her now-empty mug, then turned and wrapped her arms around Garrus, resting her head on his keel and letting out a contented sigh. “We did it, Garrus,” she murmured. “We made it out of the dark.”

She wasn’t talking about the changing of the seasons, he knew.

Garrus gently stroked her thick red hair. “Yes,” he said as her eyes drifted closed. “We did.”


End file.
